Mnuchin Sees SPAC Deal Creating Markets for Satellite Imagery

Alex Wittenberg, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a satellite-imagery company backed by his private equity firm will open up new markets for the technology.

“With vast amounts of data we can really analyze climate issues, energy supply, food security, supply chains,” Mnuchin said Tuesday in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power with David Westin.”

Earlier in the day, Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital announced it invested $150 million in satellite-imagery firm Satellogic and CF Acquisition Corp. V, a special-purpose acquisition company sponsored by Howard Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald.

“We really believe this is going to create all new types of markets with scalable, affordable imagery,” Mnuchin said. “Having a lot of data with a lot of AI really will enable both very big government markets and, more importantly, very big commercial markets.”

See also: Satellogic Secures Extra $150 Million From Liberty Strategic Capital

Satellogic’s proposed merger with the blank-check firm is expected to be completed in the current quarter, the companies said in a statement. Mnuchin, 59, will join Satellogic’s board as non-executive chairman and Lutnick, 60, will become a director.

Liberty’s investment brings Satellogic’s total committed capital to $265 million, adding to a previous $100 million public investment in private equity, or PIPE, led by Cantor and SoftBank’s SBLA Advisers Corp., among others, according to the statement.

Cantor increased its PIPE commitment to about $58 million from a previously disclosed $33 million.